Incumbent U.S. senator barely survives runoff

Embattled Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln narrowly won the Democratic nomination for a third term Tuesday night, defying a nationwide anti-establishment tide that dealt defeat to Nevada Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons and forced a veteran South Carolina congressman into a runoff.

In California, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman won the Republican nomination for governor, and another businesswoman, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, became the GOP's Senate candidate.

On the busiest night of the primary year, tea-party activists flexed their muscles in South Carolina, pushing state Rep. Nikki Haley ahead of three rivals in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Shy of a majority, she will face Rep. Gresham Barrett in a June 22 runoff.

A second tea party-backed contender, Paul LePage, won the Republican nomination for governor in Maine, and a third, Sharron Angle, defeated two other Republicans for the right to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada in the fall.

In the marquee race of the night, Lincoln survived a bruising Democratic runoff with 52 percent of the vote in nearly complete returns, compared with 48 percent for her opponent. Her win was thanks to former President Clinton's star power and her argument that labor unions were trying to interfere in state politics.

The two-term senator overcame a flood of outside money from labor unions and liberal groups that had backed Lt. Gov. Bill Halter's challenge. She faces another battle against Republican Rep. John Boozman in the fall.

"I think this race became bigger than me and bigger than Bill Halter," Lincoln said. "It became about whether or not the people of Arkansas, who are great people, were going to continue to be hammered by special-interest groups that simply wanted to manipulate them and their vote."

Behind in the polls in recent days, Lincoln increasingly relied on an ad from Clinton, who remains popular in his home state, that warned about special interests.

"This is about using you and manipulating your votes," Clinton said in the ad, which featured a clip of a speech he made at a rally for Lincoln last month.

Lincoln's campaign said it believed the former president's clout helped further an argument that she had made for weeks, that outside groups and labor unions were trying to buy Arkansans' votes.

Lincoln also used the clout she had gained in Washington as one of her selling points, reminding voters in the farm-heavy state that she was the first Arkansan to chair the Senate Agriculture Committee.

That argument sealed the deal with some voters.

"She's head of the Agriculture Committee, which is one of the most important committees we have in Washington," Lori Ritchie said after voting in a school west of Little Rock. "It's all about power and what committee you're on. It will take Halter eight to 11 years to get to the position Blanche is at now."

Nevada Gov. Gibbons wasn't nearly as successful as Lincoln, losing overwhelmingly to Brian Sandoval, a former federal judge, after a term marked by allegations of infidelity and a messy public divorce. Rory Reid, Harry Reid's son, won the Democratic nomination.

A third incumbent in trouble, Republican Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, lost to challenger Trey Gowdy by double digits but qualified for a June 22 runoff in the solidly conservative district. Gowdy campaigned as an opponent of the 2008 financial bailout legislation that the incumbent supported.

In the South Carolina gubernatorial race, Haley overcame her own accusations of infidelity in a contest that lived up to the state's reputation for anything-goes politics. The state representative fell just short of claiming an outright majority of votes, setting up the runoff against four-term Rep. Barrett. They were the top two winners in a four-way Republican field seeking to succeed Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, who confessed to an affair with an Argentine woman last year and was restricted from seeking re-election by term limits.

"We had the kitchen sink thrown at us," Haley said. "We are a state of great people. We are a state of dirty politics."

Haley, 38, had been twice accused of infidelity, which she fiercely denied. She rose in the polls after an endorsement from Sarah Palin and by promising to break an entrenched network that has dominated state politics in South Carolina for decades. She portrayed the unsubstantiated charges of sexual affairs as retaliation for taking on special interests.

Haley, of Indian Sikh descent, would become the first racial minority to be elected governor of South Carolina. Democrats nominated Vincent Sheehen, but GOP candidates in South Carolina hold a considerable advantage.

After voting Tuesday, Haley was asked whether she wanted to be seen as a barrier-breaking politician.

"These stereotypes of South Carolina are very different from what South Carolina actually is," she said. "If I win, I want it to be historic in the nature that South Carolina is moving forward for reform."

The races across 12 states took place in the shadow of the worst recession in decades, stubbornly high unemployment, dispiriting day-by-day images of the damage caused by an offshore oil-rig disaster and poll after poll that reported the voters angry and eager for change.

Curiously, given the national mood, two former governors — Republican Terry Branstad in Iowa and Democrat Jerry Brown in California — won nominations. Nevada's Gibbons was the first governor tossed from office in a year of living dangerously for incumbents everywhere.